Heroes Wednesday: The Hard Part

(Image from Heroeswiki)

I knew that after last week's tour de force episode, Five Years Gone, that it would be tough to top. And this week's didn't. That's not to say that it wasn't a great episode. There were a lot of little character pieces in it that really made it quite good, but very different from last week which felt like it could have been a two hour show.

Mama Petrelli - It's pretty amazing how Mama Petrelli has gone from the shoplifting woman in the first episode to the cold hearted ice queen she is now. Conspiring with Linderman about the explosion. Talking Nathan into going through with the plan. And in fact using the same language that FutureHiro used to Peter in the subway, "Can you be the one we need?"

Nathan - Not a ton of stuff on him this week. I like the conflict that he's feeling, but this seems like a forgone conclusion that he's going through with it.

Peter - Again, I think we all knew this was coming, with him getting the nuclear power from Ted. I did find it interesting that he wants Claire to shoot him in the head to prevent it from happening, but I'm also thinking that the bomb will actually happen.

Claire - I think it's interesting that Claire is still desiring a "normal" life, which makes complete sense from the teenager's perspective, but as I've said before, I think the normal train left the station before she was born. I loved (as I generally do on this show) the complete love that she showed to Bennett when she saw him, and the recognition in her mind that he's her dad and not Nathan, who was basically a sperm donor. Claire also got the two best lines of the episode. On finding out that Nathan can fly, "Cool," which I think Nathan liked hearing. And when Peter asked her to shoot him: "My destiny cannot be to shoot you in the head. The universe isn't that lame!"

Micah, DL, and Jessiki - One theory I've read about Micah is that he's going to be used to "fix" the voting machines in NY to get Nathan elected, which I think is plausible. On the DL/Jessiki front, it seems like Linderman has been interested in them for a long long time, which makes me wonder if Micah is some kind of genetic experiment. Also, it seems like Jessica is completely in control at this point with Niki completely in the background. We still don't have a complete explanation about how all of that's working, but now they're headed to NY as well.

Mohinder - I liked this little story line. I like how they've called back to the beginning of the season with Molly, as well as the story of Mohinder's sister, thankfully bringing some meaning to that whole pursuit. I do wonder if Mohinder will suffer from some identity anxiety because he thinks he only conceived to help his sister. I'm also fully convinced that Thompson was snowing him bad. Sure, they might use Molly to find Sylar, but it'll be much more sinister next season to find all the other "specials."

And now for the fun stuff...

Hiro - I love, love, love that Hiro doesn't want to be FutureHiro. Yes, we all thought FutureHiro was cool and Bada.., but I love the Hiro recognizes that killing people has really hardened him and taken so much of the joy out of him. Hiro is so reticent to murder that I believe that it distracted him from killing Sylar when he had the chance and that's how time started back up again. Which led to the sword getting broken, which seems like it will have a significant impact on Hiro's powers or at least his confidence in his powers.

Sylar - Yes, I yawned last week at the mention of visiting his mother. And it wasn't as great as it might have been. But it was such an extension of the character. Actually, to me the most interesting character moment for Sylar was when he realized that he might be the bomb and how killing thousands of people gave him pause. I don't think Sylar has a problem with killing one person at a time, particularly because he wants to be the most special person in the world. So to him, killing other people with powers makes sense. However, killing multitudes without powers really takes him back. Him calling Mohinder was incredibly moving, as was his feeling of betrayal at Mohinder dialing 911 (nice use of the power there). Sylar's mom was incredibly interesting to me and on the two boards I read there's been general assent that she was kind of crazy. I didn't think so. I thought that she had high expectations for him (vicariously trying to live through him?) and is a fairly religious woman, and so her reactions to him made sense to me as well. Sylar's shock at killing her was so strong, but I also think that's his tipping point. She was his last connection to his life as Gabriel Gray. That is now gone and he is completely Sylar.

For more info on this ep and/or if you're a Heroes junkie, like me, check out Greg Beeman's blog. He's one of the producers of the show and gives some good behind-the-scenes perspectives as well as why this was a slower episode.

Here's next week's preview...



So how is Peter going to prevent meltdown? I see three possibilities 1) He figures it out himself; 2) Bennett gets him to stop it; and 3) my dream scenario, Claude shows back up and gets Peter to calm down, and then tries to beat the crap out of Bennett. Three is also the least likely, but it would be cool.

Two weeks left, gang. I think the breather is over and it's going to be huge from here on out. We've got all the Heroes gathering in New York and I'm pretty certain we're getting a huge Sylar/Peter showdown that we've been getting little hints of throughout the season. This should be really good.